 It seems like there's other than Kurt. I don't see anybody else from the public gone from what I see. No, it doesn't mean it won't change as we get going. So. So we'll call the meeting to order. And first on the agendas to approve the agenda. One thing we'll have to add to the agendas. As Teresa pointed out is there's a piece of the. The bill to do a property sale. With the white river. Conservancy that we have to resign. Is that right? Trees? You haven't signed it yet. So it's going to be a motion to approve. You know, that we accept the conveyance of the 8.5 acres of the bill to do property by warranty deed from the river conservancy. Subject to a conservation easement in favor of Vermont housing and conservation. So we'll have to add those in at some point in the schedule, Chris. I don't care where. Okay. Why don't we. Put at the end if you want. Okay. Okay. And then the other one would be to, they would like, they're asking if the town would waive the recording fees. Related to the recording of the conservation easement. So we'll have to add those in at some point in the schedule. Chris, I don't care where. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. But at the end, if you want, just put at the end behind the 97 lower church street property discussion. Yep. The other thing is that Justin is not going to be able to meet us tonight. I've made this before I had conference formation room, but I would still like to move forward with the appointment. And we can talk about that when we get there. It's just, he couldn't make it tonight. He's a single parent. He has three, three to four. We can talk about that. We'll have to go ahead and make a phone conversation today. So. All right. So we'll have that in there as anything else. I think during the budget discussion, Paul, Valley is going to give you an update on the human services section. I figure we just do it. All at once. So. Yeah. Sounds good. Anything else. I move. I move we accept the gender as amended. Okay. All in favor. All right. And we have the appointment. Kurt's here with us. So we will move forward with the appointment. And then after we get through the appointments, we'll, we'll open it to any comp. Public comment. I still don't really see any public on there for anything, but. So welcome, Kurt. Good to see you. I mostly just wanted to stop in and sort of semi-officially say hello. As your representative elect. I, I don't get sworn in until. January six. But, but the training has already begun. And I think we're going to be able to do that. Five to six hours a day in zoom meetings. Learning various aspects of the job. Spent about two and a half hours a day on education finance. And how about how the education taxes is done. And. Is that enough time? No, it's not. I'm not sure if, you know, I've been working on it for a while. I have different thoughts and strategies of different. Factions have on, on ways to make that better. And so, yeah, Mostly just want to. Say hi formally introduce myself. I know you all know me. But and to. You know, again offer. If there's anything I can do right now, I don't know a lot. as needed. And as things become up, none of the, of course, none of the committees or anything have set agendas. So I don't know what kind of policy things are coming down the road. But if anything arises, I'll try to give you all a heads up as early as I possibly can and keep you posted on that. I didn't know if you wanted to, this to be a regular thing, at least through the legislative season, you know, whether you want me to come once a month and just update or be around in case you have concerns so you know you have a dedicated time to talk to me or if you just want me to communicate, you know, just as things arise in the background. I think it would be nice to see you, or at least for you and I to communicate. I'd like to know once you get appointed to what committee and you know you're on. Do you know yet? Yeah. What committee? What committee will you be appointed to or don't you know until later? I won't know until I think the seventh, I think, is what I find out. Yeah. You put in your top five choices and they see where you fit. But you know, freshman legislators generally get the less desirable appointments. So, you know, they're all important, but some of them may or may not be as interesting to a particular legislator. Well, it'd be nice to know once what committee that you're on and that'll be nice to know. Then, you know, then it helps us. But yeah, anything you hear, I should be on email or something, but I don't know if the select board wants to see you once a month or what would that's up to you guys. Yeah. I know that I heard from at least one board member when I was out chatting with board members that they were interested in that, whether criticisms with my predecessor was that no one saw her at select board meetings. So. It is nice to know what's going on up there if we have a question or whatever. So, Chris, do you want to see him once a month or? Well, I mean, I, yeah, I think it, you know, we probably ought to have an ongoing appointment because, you know, if we say we'll just do it whenever something arises, you know, you know how that goes. It, you know, doesn't happen as often, you know, as you'd like. And I think it's pretty exciting that we have, you know, that our representation is in our town. So that's always a little more exciting because it's a little more, you know, a more personal touch to it. I know the one thing that we had been working on, Curtin, I know you, I think Teresa had already kind of told you about it, but, you know, our first piece to navigate through here was, was to move our election or our town meeting day this year to a temporary Australian ballot system due to COVID. And I know, you know, reached out to already to see if there's anything that maybe the towns can, you know, because there's going to be added costs to change things from in person to Australian ballot. So if there's anything maybe, maybe in the legislation that we, you know, or you can find out that may help us. But I'm sure, you know, as things go, there are going to be other changes too. So from what I heard in any kind of, again, I'm not on any committees. I don't, you know, I don't hear the inside scoop too much. But from what I heard, there was, there was not initially any money put in to help towns that make that decision to switch. It hasn't been, it doesn't get voted on until, again, some time that first week or two of January before they'll know for certain, but that's when they'll come down. That's what I heard to Kirk is that they right now, anything they had was federal money. So they couldn't do that. I talked to someone at the Secretary of State's office, but they also legislators knew what, you know, was happening with towns. And so they were going to kind of, you know, address it when they got in session, I guess. But yeah, right now it's a no go, but we'll see. Yeah, sure. And I don't know how it fits, may or may not fit in with you, Kurt, and how you can help out. But you know, some of the bigger items looming for our town here probably over the next year will be, you know, we're working on, you know, a new highway department building. That's one big one. We're trying to renovate the classic creamery. There's money for historic creameries. You know, you have to put the creamery machinery back in. I think maybe just put, you know, some materials back in there, but and call it. But, you know, we'll obviously be working on the next sections to the, you know, drinking water, water improvement pieces will be next for our town. And I know one thing that was a little concerning for Teresa and I, because we'd been planning and then and then the highway grants were eliminated for this past year. But now we're being told that they're probably going to be only 50% funded for this year. Because we're, we're going to be looking for a grant here as soon as we can to do the Sand Hill road piece, which, you know, what we don't expect to get it this year, but maybe. Well, I applied for the Vermont transportation alternatives grant for that road. But still, it's, you know, the thought that there's rumors that the legislature may leave us at 50% is it's crazy. You just, we can't pass that along to the residents. It's too expensive. So that's my hope. And Chris, isn't everybody else's, is that they, this is a one shot deal that they're only going to give us half because they can't bounce their budget on the back of municipalities. Well, they can, but it won't work. So I think in our long term plans, I mean, you know, right now a lot of the bigger ticket item, long term plans for the town are, you know, are really infrastructure related. So, you know, buildings, water, those types of things are going to be the big tickets here over the next few years. Of course, you know, we'll continuing anything to, you know, revitalize the, the village area will always be continued to be a big ticket item for us. If that's either through COVID or after COVID. Those are, those are big things that we're working on right now. Trying to look at trying to look at if there was anything budget here that might help, but I can't think of anything. I just think having a nice, you know, having someone that we know as a representative and a dialogue with them is, is a real asset because things are going to come up and usually I see, you know, sometimes what's pending legislation and it's nice to know someone I can call and be like, Hey, what are the options? You know, what do you think about H 582? Is it going to come out a committee or not? Is it something I should worry about? So, it's nice to have someone that you can connect with. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and feel free to reach out to me. And I've been writing these down so without, if I, if I hear anything along those lines, I'll try to keep that in my, my brain to let you know about the highway grants and those kind of things. Yeah, absolutely. Kurt, do you know if they're going to continue to do the electronic newsletter that they were doing last year? I gave real good updates as to what was being talked about now with how the bills were moving through. I, I, I have not heard specifically, but I wouldn't be surprised. They're trying really hard to, to, you know, not only take the, you know, the, the bright side, if you have to look for a bright side of the pandemic is, is that on the one hand, it's increased transparency of the legislative process because every committee meeting, every, every vote is all, is all being recorded now. So people can watch it at any given time. The downside is, is it what did not allow for constituents to communicate in those processes real time. So what they're trying to do is improve on the communication of getting information out in all the various venues for people to watch they get notices, stuff like that. And they're also trying to come up with a system so that constituents can, can log into these meetings and, and really be a lot more part of that process. So it's, it really becomes more of a dialogue than you all watching the legislature work. So I, I, I know that they're planning on trying to build on the communication they had rather than take anything away. So I would suspect that they will. Okay. And then, and then based on, you know, typically, you know, in the past, we used to have representative Hass come and speak, you know, at Town Meeting Day, obviously we won't have Town Meeting Day in person this year, but if, you know, through the informational budget meetings or something like that, if you do want a slot, because, you know, you might get a bigger crowd, I don't know, you know, maybe three or four people. You know, if you want a slot to, you know, to, if that allows some time, because you'll just get in and you might have a little bit of what's coming down the line if you want, feel free to reach out to Reese, we'll get you a slot in there, you know, 15 or whatever to, to talk about that. Yeah. So now, do you think you want to see me once a month in these meetings, at least during the legislative session? And the only reason why I'm pressing for that is if you do, you know, Rochester, I think it's Rochester, meets the exact, you know, one or the other town, Stockbridge meets the exact same night as you all. So, so if, if you pick, if you want to see me once a month and you pick one, then they get the other one. So that's why I'm trying. Oh, I think maybe even once a quarter might be, you know, might be, you know, unless there's something, you know, earth shattering that really requires some additional time. Once a quarter is only once. Yeah. You're only in session for a quarter. I know. So I'm thinking if we take the second meeting of the month and if he can come for, maybe he's only here for 10 minutes to say there's not much to talk about, but if he can put on his schedule, I think that would be a great idea. Great. And you want the, you want the fourth Monday or the second one? I believe, I think that gives me an opportunity to catch up on what's going on. Sure. And we're just talking inside legislative sessions. Is that correct? That's what I, that's what I'm proposing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, and it's hard to tell me, we, you never know what comes down the pipeline here. It's, you know, that we have to deal with and, you know, a lot of times things are tied to the state somehow. So it's always the, you know, there are often times that we have griefs with things that we come down to us that we like to, you know, vent and talk to somebody about, but Absolutely. Great. Okay. So I'll make sure I put you down for the, for the fourth Monday and we'll start that in January because you don't really see me in two weeks on this. I think January is a good idea. Okay. Great. But that's all I had. I don't know if there's anything else you want to vent about, vent to me already about. You don't have an appointment. We're always looking for infrastructure money. So that's certainly something we're hoping to see come down the pike with a new president. A lot of times they'll focus on jobs and they'll want to do money for infrastructure. So we are working on a project now to get it shoveled ready. I've also applied for grant, but at least that way, if the money comes down the pike, we'll be ready for it. Yeah. I know that the state's economist is sort of hoping for and somewhat planning on that some money will drift out of the feds again. So hopefully we'll see how it goes. Excellent. All right. Well, I won't keep you from your other necessary business. Thank you for having me. And I'll see you in six weeks if not sooner. Sounds good, Kurt. Thanks. All right. Time out. Thank you, Kurt. Yeah. Bye now. I think Kurt will end up being a big help for us. I think so too. That hometown touch. Yeah, it's nice to have a legislator that you can communicate with because there's a lot of times when they really come in handy and you're looking for information. So it'll be good. Absolutely. Yeah. Or we can start talking about some of our concerns so that when those topics do arrive in the, you know, in Montpelier that, you know, he can advocate for us. So definitely a big help, I think. So you said Justin. Justin is not going to be here tonight, but I still want to proceed with the conversation about him and the appointment for him. Sure. Are you ready to do that now or? Sure. Okay. So, was there any other people that would be joining based on the committee or whatever that? Well, Lindley. That was him. So, Lindley was here. So, Lindley on Wednesday, December 9th. Lindley, myself, Paul Feeney, Tim Mills and I interviewed Justin Cram for the position of Second Constable. Dave Aldrigheady was sick, so he couldn't attend. We did it via team. We had a team's meeting. Obviously, you're all aware that Oscar is going to be, you know, reducing his hours. And so we came up with some questions and circulated those and it was a good interview, excuse me, and it was a unanimous agreement between all of us that the select board should appoint Justin to come on board. His areas, as I said, are that he patrols because he is a Rutland County Sheriff's deputy and he does Tin Miff and Middletown Springs and Derby. He does some small towns, which is nice. He understands how small town works and, you know, he's had training on community policing and things like that. So the Rutland County Sheriff is actually going to be, he's prepping right now because in the fall of 2021, he's hoping to go in the full-time academy. And Paul Feeney told Lindley and I that, you know, they don't spend money on people that they're not happy with or gonna keep, you know. So they felt like he was a good federalist. They wouldn't be putting him towards the academy because it takes up a slot and it takes money. So what I talked to Oscar about, because currently Justin's a 2E, which means he has the same certification as Oscar. And what Justin was saying was that they're going to be moving away from the 2Es and they want all police officers to have the level 3 certification. So he is going through currently an NCIC background check, but I obviously don't expect us to find anything because he's already been through that and more because he's the sheriff's deputy currently. So I had spoken with him the other day, then I spoke with Oscar and Oscar said that what he would do is stay kind of in the background that way when Justin goes to the full-time academy or whatever we'd have, we'd still have an officer constable, so which would be nice to have. But there was something really, I don't know, nice about him. He just was very low key and he definitely understood community. That was my feeling of, Lindley, if you have anything to add. Yeah, no, I think you covered most of it. I think that the big things that stood out really were how focused he is in his own career within small towns and community and really like that just came across in almost every question was how focused on community he is and wanting to build that rapport. I think when we first, you know, when Teresa first brought him up, one of my concerns was how far away he lives, but I think he would still make that same effort even where he is currently stationed from where he lives. It just sounds like he still makes that effort in each of those small towns that he patrols in. So I appreciate that. Yeah, I think so. And he, we chatted today and he just, he has three children, three small kids, and he was like, I just can't make this work today. And which was fine. It was no big deal. I put him on on Friday and I've been trying to track him down. He's already, he came, he met me originally, then he came back. I think he hasn't yet, but he's going to meet Loretta, the chief in Royalton. And one of the questions I thought he answered really well was the fact that he wants to be over here. He wants to meet other state police, you know, officers. He wants to meet other officers, other, you know, Windsor County, Orange County. So he's definitely looking to branch out to meet people and really sees it as an opportunity, which was good. So, so yeah, we had a unanimous feeling about him. And our recommendation is that the select board appoints him as second constable pending the outcome of his NCIC background check. So will he have definite hours? Well, we have most hours. What we chatted about was one of the nice things about what they do now is it's kind of, you know, it's nice that they're not always no one they're going to be there, which is a good thing. But what I did talk to Oscar about and I'm going to sit down with Justin when he finally officially comes on board and tell him at least once a week or once every two weeks, I want there to be a set two hour period where we know for sure he's in Bethel and we can publish that. So if somebody wants to approach him or talk to him or have coffee with him or whatever they can do that. Also, Paul Feeney has agreed to help us do maybe quarterly community meetings so that it would be Justin, maybe Oscar, but Paul Feeney said he'd help us facilitate those kind of have like an outreach. So, you know, it's like, here's your constable if you have a problem come and talk to him or what can we do as a community and things like that. So I definitely wanted some changes and I talked to Oscar about them and and we'll again, we'll do that with Justin once he's officially on board. It sounded like and obviously there's more for Teresa, going out with Justin on this, but it sounded like his schedule with the Sheriff's Department is pretty set. And so I think it would sort of force him to sort of set a schedule with us, you know, he knows the times he won't be able to be here, which will kind of give us that form of knowing, okay, here's when he will be able to be here, which I actually think is kind of nice to have a little more heads up as you know, when we might see him regularly. Yeah, exactly. I had a conversation with Oscar on Thursday about it and that's what I said is because he's like, well, you could call dispatch. I said, I shouldn't have to call dispatch. I should know when you're going to be here. So we're going to hammer these things out. I think once Justin comes on, I'll have an appointment, I have a meeting with Oscar and Justin and kind of hash this out. So but yeah, I think he's going to be a really, really good fit. He started doing public service even before he went to to become a police officer. He used to be the animal control officer in Brandon. So I'm like, wow. And he was on the fire department in Brandon as well. So he certainly has a life of public service a few years behind him, which is good. You get a feel at all about if he might hang around for a while? I mean, you know, what, you know, we're hoping certainly three years, right? I mean, I think it's hard nowadays to get anybody more than like three to five years. But I feel like it. I feel like he's still young in his career. And he's, you know, like we said, we think in the fall of 2021, he may go on to the Academy and who knows what that could bring afterwards. He could end up, you know, decide and go to the VSP or transferring over really depends on his family situation. But he's definitely interested. So I how will they work it out with the cruiser? Well, they both live in Brandon. So I think it'll be an easy, I think that'll be an easy fix between the two of them. They actually live near each other. So when he needs it, they'll work out how to get it. Right. I think once Justin is trained that they will have their set hours and then they'll make that's, you know, the cruiser will be swapped out on their end. I don't see that as an issue. So I guess we just need, unless there's further discussion, just need a motion to to approve. Are these just one year? Is a constable one year appointment? I think so. I think that you reappoint Oscar every year. I think so. So right now, would it just be an interim and then we'd have to reappoint him after the town meeting days? I don't believe so. I think because you guys are allowed to vote, I don't think Oscar's not on a March schedule. I don't believe. I think you hired him at a different time to the year. So I think he's going to be that Justin would be okay until December of next year, but I'll verify that. Okay. So just need a motion to appoint Justin Cram as the second constable. I can. Okay. All in favor? And what we probably ought to do, Teresa, is whenever his date is that he does come on probably set him up for an appointment with the select board. And it'd probably be a good time for the select board to kind of go back through like we did with Oscar and Keith and everybody before that is, you know, go through where, you know, what we'd like to see out of them. And, you know, we can probably update as a board of what we'd like to see focus points, you know, I know before it was traffic, community relations, things like that. But I think we'll probably put him on after the beginning of the year. I'm sure with, you know, small young family that he's going to have commitments till after, and then give him a heads up so he can work his schedule around it. So I talked to him today about that. I told him we'd put him on for a future agenda. Alrighty. And it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for him to, you know, if, if Royalton will do it, you know, have him spend a little time with Royalton there early on to get familiar with the area, you know. Yeah, that's what they're going to do. They're going to overlap. That's why he's going through NCIC. Normally we would go through BCIC, but he's going to work out of the Royalton office. That way he has all the bells and whistles that Bethel doesn't have. So, so he's doing that right now. But that's, you know, so that way he gets to know the area and he can go to the barracks and meet the lieutenant and the troopers out of there. So. Okay. Sounds good. Any further discussion on the constable? Looks like we're good. So we will move to public comment. So now's the time if there's anybody that has anything in general that they'd like to bring up that's not on the agenda. I think probably the only person I see out there is just one. I don't see anybody else. At least from what the participation list that I see doesn't show anybody else out there. But if there is, throw something in the comment box, Ray Jan, whatever. And if not. Something I could say that's just in the public comment is Kelly was doing some research for the library about grants for their computers. And she, I'd asked her to reach out to Dick McCormick and some other areas for her to look into. And I guess Dick was all over it. So, which is good to hear. So she was, oh yeah, that would have been one thing we could have mentioned the Kirk there. I forgot about, yeah. Well, Dick was on it. And I think Dick had was going to reach out to Kathy Day. So which was good. They were looking and I had Kelly looking in some areas online where there's usually funds for computer stuff. But so anyway, Hunt continues. So. Good. Kelly actually did include Kirk in her outreach because I was involved in that somehow. And so yeah, Kirk was at least aware of it. I don't know if he knew of any grant opportunities. But that's good. I mean, we think with COVID that there would have been money for libraries, you know, for all the good that they do. I mean, you got people outside using their Wi-Fi. So I figured maybe, you know, plus Dick has been there long enough that he might have the inside track. Great. I wonder if there are any, like, EC fibers and nonprofit, but if there are any companies along those lines who have done well with the increase and the sort of funneling of money that the state has done into broadband expansion, if they would be willing to do some donations back, I mean, it directly benefits them. I don't know, maybe from Cast or, you know, a fair point or whatever they are consolidated to learn. Yeah. I'm assuming Kathy has probably checked all those places out. But trying to find some new avenues for them because their needs are, you know, for libraries are always big. So. Right. All right. And we'll move on to the town meeting day Australian That wasn't me. It was my husband. Yeah. Bless you. Yes. So town meeting, Australian ballot. So Pam, I'm sorry, was great. She went, she looked it up, so we have some prices here. So the cost to have, like I put in the packet, the cost to have the memory card program is going to be between $800 and $900. And about, I think that's supposed to be $285, not $85 to have the ballots printed, Australian ballot, to have the ballots printed. Yeah, I thought $85 was pretty inexpensive. Well, it was $0.30. So it was $0.33 a I don't have it back up with me. It was $0.33. I think for a single-sided and just a little bit more for that, for over that. And then so it would be 33 cents times, I think we decided on 700 ballots. So anyway, is there, that was the, I think that was pretty, I think that was it. I think it was like 33 cents for 700 ballots. So it's not a ton of money. And then more obviously it's more expensive to have the card programmed through LHS and then have the ballots printed at Elbrown and Sons and Berry. As I said already, there's currently no money for these to be reimbursed, but I would, I would imagine there's going to be enough outcry that down the road there is. I'm also thinking about the fact that it would be nice to do the Australian ballot town meeting and also do a bond vote for the town garage. So that would save us from doing another election at another time for a bond vote. So the question's already on there. We also have like $313 left in election, excuse me, in the line item for the election. So, yeah, so I think that 85 is supposed to be 285. Oh, sorry about that. I must have got carried away typing. So it's going to be about $1,000 to $1,100 to do the election, Australian ballot. But I talked to Pam, who is your local election official? And obviously for us, or for her, she's certainly leaning towards having the card program. It's just going to be easier. And especially with COVID, do you want to have eight people counting the ballot? So they're all within close proximity of each other. So it kind of makes sense if we're doing this, having town meeting and Australian ballot for COVID, it makes sense that we also program the card and just have it done. You still legally have to look at every single ballot, but it's a quicker process. So, and I did just get $3,867 back in previous COVID expenses and cleaning, things that we, you know, spent money on before. So I feel like there's money in the budget to deal with this. And I also wouldn't be surprised if before June, there was money somewhere to help us offset this expense. So that, so Pam's recommendation is obviously, is to go with the, to have the machine programmed and have the ballots run through the machine. For what it's worth, I concur with that opinion. And what is the timeframe again, Theresa, that we would have to send those to the printers by? So you have to, I have the deadline on my calendar, which is not here, but you have to have your consent of candidate forms back in January. So as soon as the consent of candidate form is there, that's what you'll finalize the ballot, you'll have your ballot draft up until then, then the consent of candidate shows you how you want to print it on the ballot. Then once that set ballot will go to the printers and rough to the races, because there's obviously by statute, things are set when, when things have to be done, just like when we have to put out town report, etc. It's January 14th. Actually, I just remember the deadline is January 14th. That's the day you have to get your consent of candidate form in. Kelly was out today, but Pam made her some copies. So we're going to get those out to kind of this week as a push to let people know, hey, if you want to run for an office, you need to get this consent of candidate form out. Is there enough time to do the bond vote information? Like I know when we did the one for the water, like we have to hit certain statutes of dates and things. I'm looking right now. I actually pulled the statute on Friday and I need to sit back down and look at it. And I'm thinking that there is, I'm hoping so. The only, so I'm hoping so that there is because it would be nice to kind of hit the ground running. So I'll have more information for that on our December 28th, but then you could take advantage of just using the Australian ballot and kill two birds with one stone. So then I also did some ask the Secretary of State's office. I was unsure about the social services appropriations. I was afraid they had to be separate because the only town I ever knew who did it was New Haven, but Bill, Will Sending said they don't have to be separate. We can actually include the human services right in the general fund budget if we want. So that was nice to know because I was like, this is going to be like a three page ballot otherwise. So, so it'll probably be maybe two sided, but depends on how much room takes up, you know, for all the election officials. So Kelly is going to reach out to Stan Capron and, you know, Jason Rogers to see if, you know, people want to be town agent and whatever the other one is that I forget right now. So what does the board feel in regards to spending the extra to do the programmable piece of it for the ballots move to do that? Yeah, I think especially Teresa's point about the safety factor, Mark said, just even though it's a little extra money that we hadn't budgeted, I think it keeps everybody a little safer. It makes it a little easier process on all of us. So we would still have to deal with write-ins though if they were running, like we did with the general election. Yep. So there was still would have to be some BCA members present to do to deal with that. And the last time it really, we had too many people in a small space doing that afterwards and it really was problematic. So I, you know, I need to look at that part of it a little better, but I think it's a good idea to do that. You can even put my select boards, type in towards it if you'd like. I think we'll be fine, but thank you for that. Also too, this time you won't be holding the election at the fire, at the firehouse. So you'll have more room. It'll be at the school. And so that'll be nice. But yes, you're right. Legally, you have to look at every single ballot. And you may have some write-ins, hopefully people that want to be candidates for slack board or Lister or whatever else that they get them in, you know, in advance. So we're definitely going to push the deadline in the forms this week. Yeah, I guess my question was if they have, if there's a deadline for nominees, why would there be allowed to be write-ins? There are allowed to be write-ins. Absolutely. Your chances are less of winning, obviously, because it's a pain. So it's really just, you know, people forget about it. Yeah. So you'll print the ballot with whoever you have at the time on it. But yeah, absolutely. Somebody could be a right candidate later for sure. And you pick those up. But hopefully, Lord willing, everybody gets on the ballot. It just makes it a lot nicer and smoother of a process. I mean, the only tricky thing would be if there are no candidates for a certain position, you know. Right. I kind of expect that to be the case for the Lister and for one of the Lister positions. And that's fine. You know, I talked to Louise and just said, look, let's, if somebody doesn't come forward, don't come forward. The select work can appoint later. That would give you a chance to put it out. Newspaper, look at applications, et cetera. Well, if that happened, that could just, you know, it could be a higher percentage of ballots that will have to be counted by hand, you know. Right. If there wasn't a Lister and there was different write-ins all across the board, you know. Exactly. And it's a pain, but it happens. Everybody, you know, these people who write in Mickey Mouse and this and that, you know. So it's all been done. But yeah, hopefully people don't, you know. I always figured once, if somebody came and counted ballots on like a general election and saw the write-ins, they would never do a write-in again, especially if it's not stupid like Mickey Mouse because it's such a process to go through hundreds of ballots to look at everyone. Yeah. Well, we've seen just about all of them. I assume that we're going to have to send some BCA members down to count with Royalton for the school board director there, like we did the last time. I would assume so. And since, you know, Pam is your election official, she'll, you know, wrangle you up and try to, I guess, talk one of you into going down, if not two, to go down and do that. So would the schools, would this all be one or would it be two separate? Two separate because their ballot is going to be hand counted. So it'll just go in a separate. You'll put ours through the machine and then you'll put the other one into a voting, a locked voting box and then that will get transported down. They're going to have on there will be their election officials, which are a combination of Bethel and people plus their budget. Right. So we, we're all good with moving forward with paying the extra and getting the machine program. Sounds like. Okay. You need a motion. I was going to say, do you need a motion for that? You did. I think you already, Dave made a motion and Lindley seconded I thought. And I don't think it really needs to be a binding. No, not really a solution. I think we can just, I think you can do it by consensus. Yeah. So that's good. Nope. I think we're all in favor of that. I didn't see anybody that was opposed up. So move forward with that. Yeah. Excuse me. And next up here. We had an appointment to the DRB board. Teresa had sent the letter in our packets. Yeah. So Owen, you got received at Owen's letters in there and he has as he outlined in his letter, he's attended the DRB meeting and then he also attended the combination DRB planning commission meeting because we're starting to look at redoing the zoning regulations, which we will be tackling again this Thursday and we're supposed to get through the first three chapters. So I see Owen's notebook and think he's doing it. So I thought I had a feeling those look familiar through the emails before. So anyway, so here Owen is here. If you have any questions and you had his letter he's just a glutton for punishment. So any further discussion or just need a motion to a point? So move. Okay, in all in favor. All right. Ready? Congratulations. Thanks y'all. I'm excited. There you go. I'll see you Thursday. Don't spend all your money in one spot. Yeah. Unlimited comp time. That's right. So the combination of the planning commission and the DRB, how does that stand number wise now, Teresa? Well, let's see. So far the zoning, excuse me, planning commission is myself, Gene Kraus, Wayne Townsend, myself, Wayne, Rita, who you just appointed. We just pointed last meeting. Did you appoint Rita to the planning commission? Okay. Yeah, I was sorry. I wish she, yeah, that's right. She is. I couldn't remember because she also does the equity and racial one. So that's her. And then Rick Benson, too, is on the planning commission now. So he's the chair of both the planning commission and the DRB. So last time we had one other DRB member joined us. So I'm hoping that more DRB members will join us this Thursday. So yeah. So thank you as Rita, I forgot. That's right. That's why we're meeting at seven. So we're getting there, but we still need more people. And there was kind of talks of maybe temporarily merging those two? Well, we're kind of are because of zoning regulations. So since we're both, it behooves them to be part of the conversation because they're the ones who have to enforce a portion of them. So we have been, you know, meeting together. We had hoped, yes, Chris, that we could get a couple other DRB members to join the PC. It has not happened so far, but at least they're willing to attend the joint meeting. So that's what we still really need planning commission members. So right. And what we were thinking was the right number of planning commission members. I would like it to be five, not including me. So which means right now you have Wayne, Jean and Rita. So we really need two more members because Rick has only agreed very to be the chair for one year. So we need more members. You know, what's funny is I had, had Kelly send a letter, an invitation, if you will, to all the multiple property landowners in Bethel because if somebody, that's who should be involved, who should be on the planning commission is somebody who owns multiple properties. That's a great, you know, but we didn't, I don't think we got, we didn't get any takers off that round. Yeah. Therese, can you tell me how many people are on the DRB right now? I missed that. I'm sorry. On the DRB right now is Owen, Rick, Chuck Washburn, Brad, Andrews, Penny, Griffin, and I feel like I'm missing somebody. Thank you. Okay, so six members. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. It'd be nice for the planning commission to have five, actually six would be even better, but you know, and beggars can't be choosers. Yeah. I, I think Therese, I think you were actually right initially. I don't think Rita is on that committee yet. It's that couple that there's a sub. Zoe and Kyle. Yeah. Yeah. And Kyle, that's right. That's right. Thank you. Yeah. They're the ones. I'm so sorry. I've missed them. Yeah. So that's right. So it's Zoe and Rita attended the meeting and we have pointed her to the REC committee, right? Equity committee. Yep. Equity committee. And I don't think she has submitted the letter yet for planning commission. We might have scared her away. Yeah. Well, we see the bylaws and it's a big deal. So yeah. So that's right. It was Zoe and Kyle Cartwright. Thank you, Owen. And they're great. So if you take Owen, read his name and then put in there. So you still sit stuck with, we still have the same amount of people. So we really need some more members. But we'll make our regular pitch in the town plan and wherever else Facebook and other things again. All right. Anything further on that? Moving along. We have our mask on my debt service note. So last time we talked about this, we need to change in terms because they've made a mistake on their on the paperwork that they had sent, you know, the loan documents. So it didn't want to be sent us looking for a payment this year. It was only an interest only and I didn't catch it. I coded the bill and didn't think a thing about it thinking there'd be another one coming just because when we paid bond payments are that way. So I didn't think twice about it and I should have. Anyways, when I reached out to them about your concern about them paying more interest, they just said, you know, sorry, that's just the way it is. But I mean, in all honesty, we'd spent the money and and we were supposed to have spent it on Irene and ended up being debt service that they ended up graciously refinancing for us and that's to the tune of $1.4 million. So you know, maybe at one point, a future budget will be able to make another payment or a little extra on the principal to help buy that down. So we are going to need a motion to approve an additional year on the amortization schedule. So I moved. Hey, all in favor. I'm just gonna say I don't vote unless it's a tie, but I'm gonna say no. I know I believe in paying an extra interest payment when it's issue arise from the bank themselves. I tried. I mean, I, you know, I'd like an extra whatever, 50, 60,000 to exactly. So we'll hopefully, you know, maybe going forward and not this budget, but another budget, or we could put a little bit more towards the principal and then take care of it that way. All right. We have the revolving loan fund for drinking water. So that was obviously a big portion of your packet and it's multiple motions as you can see but what I'm going to do is put this on a clipboard tomorrow at my back door so you can all just come in one at a time and sign and sign the loan documents. Is everybody good with that? Okay, I got the thumbs up from Lindley. So we're good. So obviously, so there's a whole bunch to it. There's your resolution, your certificate. I gave you everything in your packet so you could read through it. So there are three separate motions. Some of it is for you all to sign, some of it's for Pam to sign, one place is for just Chris to sign. So hence, I spelled out the motions for you. This is a great deal. It's $16,600, 0% interest for five years. I had written, as I said earlier, the Transportation Alternatives Grant because this money, this loan, Transportation Alternatives Grant is for money to do the storm water on, you know, Sand Hill and paving and all that. But this money would be, if we, you know, to do the water, we'd have to borrow money somewhere else. So that could be in hopes that we see some air money coming down the pike, when a new president comes in, or it could be we end up borrowing again from the, for construction from the same, basically, just like we did the 2.8 million. But you can't, you know, but it gives us a good year. It's going to be a year or so because the state has changed their policy. Now they want the plans in for about a year prior. So, but we've started, Tim has already met with Mike Maynard on site, and we're moving forward. I had an estimate, Chris Jarvis helped with the paving portion in the gravel and Tim did the infrastructure. So we've got our grant in. Is there a copy of exhibit A somewhere? I didn't see that in the packet. Project description and conditions. Oh, well, I don't think you're going to have it yet because, oh yeah, it was on the back of one of them, project description and conditions. I was thinking they might wait for it. It just says preliminary engineering report and environmental report for water main improvements on Main Street, Highland Drive, Graham Street, Crystal Drive, Sandhill, Bicentennial Drive and surrounding areas. And basically it's, you know, the five years which we talked about and it talks about, you know, the chance that we might get some forgiveness if the project is funded by any non-DWSRF, then we have to repay the entire portion. Otherwise, you know, there may be something eligible for forgiveness down the road. So I really just outlined again areas that we'd already said that we were going to be working on because while we have this $2.8 million project that's, you know, still have a few months left of in the spring, we still, you know, moving forward, there still was a big list with that sanitary survey that we need to address. So I guess first we'll need a, let's see, we got, we'll need a motion to adopt the resolution and certificate and sign the general obligation note. So we have a second. Okay, all in favor. And then we'll need a motion to authorize the board chair to sign the loan agreement. So Lynn Lee moved it, Paul, you seconded it? Yep. Okay, all in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay, and then a motion to authorize the town treasurer to sign the distribution authorization loan agreement, general obligation note and certificate of registration. You don't want to fight a wall. Moved by Paul. Second. Second, Lynn Lee, all in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay, that was all of them that you needed, right, Therese? Yes. Yes, thank you. I know it's process, but. And then we'll come down and sign them at the town office. I'll put it in the back. If you come in the back towards my office, I'll be there on a clipboard. Okay. All righty, move along. Anything further on that? Does anybody have any questions in regards to that? Next on the, it's just kind of an update in regards to the water system improvement financials. We should hand out on that. Yep. So we labeled that the preliminary projection only. But I don't think I could be giving you better news. You're looking at a, it was obviously we bonded for 2.8 million. And this is the engineer using projection. So looks like, you know, his hope is obviously his estimate is we're going to end about 2.69. And then with all the subsidies, we're basically going to buy that down to $616,000. So you're getting $2.8 million worth of work for, or 2.6 million dollars of work, 2.69 for $616,000. So that's a great deal. And so we just tried to give you the spreadsheet to let you know kind of what was left. And I have the schedule here. And the plan right now for TATRO is that they're going to, they're planning to start up March 29th and leave Bristol, or Bristol Bethel around June 18th. So they're looking to finish up. They have, so we have to do Cushing Drive. We have to do Clifford. We still need to do the Hydra and Densemore. The sampling station we have to install on Pleasant Street. There's still some work up at the Geico tank to be done, some metal stairs and things like, or wooden stairs and some miscellaneous metal stuff. So we still have some things to take care of. So we all know they're coming back. But that's their plan right now is obviously to come back in March and be gone by the middle of June. They have other work to do, so they don't want to linger. But I feel like those numbers are great. Yeah, very good. I mean, I know when we went through this process, I guess we'll say we budgeted for like, it was like one, one, one, two that we would be paying back. And I know we had some discussions that we didn't want to necessarily publish the number because it could be as low as. I want to give everybody's hopes up that it could be as low as, but I think we were kind of, as the board, we were thinking that it would be probably in the 7 to 800. Yeah, that's what we were hoping for. So, you know, you know, in with this is, this was already, you know, which was, we outside of the project, it ended up being part of the project because some of it was in the way. And, you know, we had the trench open, but we ended up also getting a thousand feet of new stormwater, six structures, a full pave on both Avon and livery. And I think we're also going to get a full pave on Cushing and Cliffords. Oh, you know, it was, we ended up getting a lot of stuff in there and taking care of, which was good because there was either broken structures or no structures on a couple of those streets. So, you know, fingers crossed, obviously this being preliminary because we're still hoping that things, you know, move as projected for the spring, but we're looking at stuff. I know there's some trench patches that people are not happy with, we're not happy with, but we're waiting to see how they get through the winter and we'll address them in the spring. So. So, Therese, how does this impact the increase in the water rates? Are we actually just going to be increasing to pay for, you know, 600 and some odd thousand as opposed to 2.8? Well, when we put out the mailer, you know, we'd kind of let people know how much, I think we'd estimated X amount of dollars per quarter that we were saying. And I think, and to, you know, we estimated it on the high side. So I have not run the numbers yet. I don't want to get anybody's hopes up. I just want to make sure the project ends at this. This is what we're projecting. But I think at that time we were projecting $4 and some change a month. I think Chris and I had this conversation. It was like 13 a quarter or something, I believe. Yeah. So I was thinking it was like for something a month. So obviously we're looking at less than that. But Tim and I have not even started to put together a budget yet for water sewer. Obviously you guys don't approve until May anyways, but we usually kick out a draft to go in town report. But we have been busy with them. They still hadn't left town till last week. And we're also hoping not to have to increase any of the engineering contract because the state's rule is that we have to have a resident engineer on site when we're actually laying the pipe. So for some of that, once the pipe is in the ground, we won't have to do that. So probably Tim will pick up the slack there and we'll end up overseeing. I mean, he already has most of it anyway. So he'll oversee some of it. But so anyways, all good news. But yeah, so we're aware of a couple things of the paving, but we're just going to wait and see. And certainly Chris and Tim and I were talking about that the other day and saying, future projects, we're going to make sure that we specify in it. We had hoped for a full lane pave in this project, but it ended up being that we didn't, that the pipe just wasn't located where we thought it was. So I think that's something moving forward in the future. We're going to try to make sure we at least get a full lane pave out of it instead of patching. But we will make the best of it. We have a punch list to get the elevations corrected on some of the devices in the street. Yes, actually, yep. That was part of our meeting the other day talking about that. Yep, because we have some issues with structures. So yes, yep, those will be also dealt with in the spring. But yeah, so they are on the punch list. We went over that. We had our final meeting last Tuesday. And that was on the list, Dave, because there's some, some weird ones. So some really bad ones. Yeah. Yep. So we'll deal with those. Yeah. And I know Chris and Tim and I had that same conversation too. Chris must be talking to Brady. No, Anna's decided to make popcorn in the kitchen. We have a fire alarm hole. Yeah. No, I mean, that's all good. That's good to hear. And, you know, however we look at it now, if that's either, you know, the, the increase to the water may, you know, not be as high as we had thought it would be or, or we can look at it as we'll probably be able to get some future projects done, you know, like Sand Hill and that. And, you know, you know, overall for lower than what we had anticipated. So that's good. I did ask them if there's any more lead subsidy money out because Cindy Parks was there and she said not until July. So, you know, we're already starting to design, to start working on designing the next project in the next phase. So hopefully when we go to do that, we'll be, there is a more lead subsidy or like I said, with a new president, a lot of times that's a big one is they'll roll out a big project for era money. So we just, my goal is to get that project shovel ready as soon as we can so that we don't miss the boat on any possible funding. All right. Any further discussion on the water financials? All right. And we had the general fund budget discussion. So the idea was that this evening would be its final discussion. So Paul had given you that, and I gave that to you, the human services. I gave you their minutes as well as their amounts. And I made sure that I put those in the budget. So currently in this round after, because I hadn't met with Alan before and I have now, so this budget that I am giving you is a 1.81% increase over last year, which is under two cents. I feel like this is a budget that we can still move forward with and still get some things done in town, which is always the goal is to, you know, continue to move forward. I know that in the past, the board has talked about a 3% and there certainly is always room to set more money aside. So obviously I'm always open to that. But this is where I'm at is that the 1.81, I do know that we're going to have the bond payment. So we had water sewer. I also know there's going to be some expenses. I think, you know, there may be an increase there. We'll have to see. I know everybody's talking about the governor and the school increase, which is going to be significant this year. I think it was nine. Nine cents. Obviously that is a double-edged sword because for some people, yes, while the school tax goes up, their pre-bate may rise and may not. So it, you know, that depends. And I never want to say that we need to cut the town budget to manage what the school could not. So I just happened to come in at 1.81 and Chris, when we said we'd talk about it with the board to see if there was anything that we wanted to increase, you know, into reserve funds or something. So some of the, so our discussion from last time, obviously we were higher. Yeah, we were like three. So we just kind of looking through here, we. I tried to make the changes in bold, Chris. Yeah. So there was the biggest change is what we took the ditching back down to what this year was. So what. Cover the additional money and aging equipment. Yeah, I tried to balance those out. So we put that back down to the 20. There was the other other one there, the E-Rath. That's right. The E-Rath there. We went to just paying this year for the E-Rath of the projects that were done, not for all the E-Rath because we still have. We still have the bridge project to do for next year. So there'll be another coming of, you know, 50,000 probably an E-Rath for that or a little more up there, depending on the price of that bridge. Yeah. So there was some other things and materials that were picked up, some speed time and some guard rail and stormwater catch basins is really, I moved this 15,000 from last year's engineering under highway to stormwater catch basins. So it's the same amount as last year. I just put it in stormwater because last year we were going to engineer them. This year we're actually just going to take care of it. We have to rehab a couple of manholes, extend inflow pipes on a third and plus do some lining. So we have, you know, the stormwater is another thing that hasn't been maintained in downtown. And we kept the money in there to start fixing up the wall downtown. But we did pull back the money for repointing the front of the building. Yep. I was just trying to find the rest of my notes. So what's the status of the Cherry Hill Cemetery wall? I see we have money in there for Lilyville Cemetery Repair, but what's going on with the Cherry Hill one? Cecil knows the money goes away in June. He's hoping to have somebody there with him this spring to start to hammer that out, maybe April, May, June and get that taken care of. He knows that once that this is his one shot deal to get it done and he's focused on that. So there wasn't, I think the mainly the changes were in the highway budget. Obviously like the repointing that Chris talked about. And then like I said, I updated the human services based on the Human Services Committee. So that's in here as well as those updated numbers. So there wasn't let me throw something out there. If we were looking at some point of having to do a reappraisal. Yes. And the cost of that is hundreds of thousands. How much? It's going to be probably close to 300,000 something like that. Yeah, I think that's a good estimate. And I would say right now we probably have about half that. Does that sound about right trees? Maybe, I don't know if we have 150. Maybe, yeah, I'd have to double check. Yeah, pretty close to that Paul. We're still on the hook for about 100, 150,000 that we need. So should we start to plan on doing that? Or do we wait till it's thrust upon us? Well, we did last year, we started adding, or in 1920, the budget year fiscal year 1920. We did add 5,000 in there. And then this proposed budget has 20,000 in it. So we did take that into consideration this year to try to add a little more money in there. But we're never going to have enough in there to fund it properly if it happens in the next two years, let's say. No, no, I mean, you know, no, we won't and will, but we will have enough to at least probably get us through one fiscal year. So if it happens, I don't think it'll happen next year. But if it does, and we start, at least with the money we have in our fund, my experience is you pay monthly. So what we have in the fund right now, plus what's in this budget, would probably get us through the fiscal year. And then we would have to do a short term loan or for a couple of years or something, you know, to make up the balance. But we're also going to have a loan of some kind for the town garage. That's happened in here in the next couple years. Yep. And I budgeted the town garage loan in here along with some rent. And, you know, what I did with the town garage is since I had originally pitched two weeks ago, pitched seven spending 700,000 on the town garage and putting a couple hundred thousand into the town office. That was obviously met with no. So I have dropped that as I have to have a roof. And some other things that I bought down the loan, so that the loan for the town garage, while the budget will be 700,000, the max will, what we'll put out a pocket of six, we'll use 100,000 of the money in the capital building fund to buy down that loan. And then I'll use some of the bounce money to put a new roof on and whatever else I got to do to keep the town office standing. So I had put that under debt service town garage. I put in a loan payment plus line of credit interest plus some rent. So I'm hoping that that, you know, works it out. So I obviously think we're going to have some issues because I wasn't sure with COVID about metal, you know, how that's going to go. But once I put the RFP out, I guess we'll know better. I was just wondering if we're better off getting proactive with the appraisal as opposed to waiting until we're forced into doing it, because it's a special company that we'd have to have come in, right? Yeah, we'll have to put it out. Yeah, to bid. And there's only a few that do it. But so we could certainly add, we could certainly add another, I'm drawing a blank, Chris. What's another penny about 14? It's under 20, 19 cents. So we could add another, you know, even 15,000 to the capital improvement reserve fund if you wanted. No, I'm not asking to increase the rate anymore. I was just curious if we, whether or not we should just bite the bullet and maybe set a date or put something in motion on it. Well, I think what we'll have to do is frankly is wait right now because Louise is going to run for Lister for the one-year term, but resign in July. Her last day is going to be July 1st, which leaves Judy, God bless her soul, and the possibility of another lady who may be coming in for a few hours a month. So I think we will know better, Paul, once July passes and we actually staff the Lister's office. So we'll work with Judy and see, you know, what our plan is. So I definitely think within the next, you know, a few months we will be leaning towards a plan. Will there be any grant money available for a paranoid appraisal? I doubt it. I've never heard of anybody getting grant money for it. Okay, just curious. Yeah, I've never heard of anybody getting money for it, Mo. You know, but certainly if I hear of anything I would apply. Oh yeah. But it would be nice. I think it's doubtful. I mean, I think it's, you know, it's something everybody goes through. But also too at this point, there's only very few companies that actually do it. So we'll be on a waiting list. My guess is that you'll end up having, we will have a rolling reappraisal, which happens over the course of two years. Yeah, and I think we have to also just kind of look at, I know we, you know, when we talked, well, when we talked as a board, probably about four years ago on, you know, because we, I think we all understood that the, that the budgets that were being set in the town were not, were not feasible for the services rendered. And, you know, as we all know that no matter what the budgets were, people were just overspending that. And, and we had talked about a 3%, 3 cents, 3% for our budget seems to go it's pretty hand in hand. So when we say 3% or 3 cents, it's, it's basically the same because of the size of our budget. But we also have to look into that, you know, last year, last year, our budget, if you take the ERAF, you know, because we had to pay for the flood repair stuff, if you take the ERAF out of that, our budget was actually a 2 cent under budget. And then this year, if you take the ERAF, that we would be sitting right now at even. So, you know, our budget, you know, this one here that we're talking about now and in last years or the one that we're in right now, I mean, we really haven't, the budget itself for what we see in town hasn't grown, you know, we're taking advantage of definitely the efficiencies that we, you know, worked hard to, to find. I think we all agree that we're still being able to put some money forward and we're getting some futuristic projects. But, you know, just like Paul said, and we do have some things that are coming still that we are going to have to address. If it's not now, it will be next year or the year after. So, I think that's true. I also think too, the good thing about, I mean, I feel like last year, you know, we were still able to get some things done with that budget. And the good thing about paying down your ERAF is so that we're not sitting on some big loan surprise, you know, loan down the road like we're trying to pay down now. The other thing is too, even in this budget, I feel like that I can get projects done. I mean, I can, I still feel like even though I'm only giving you a 1.81 budget and part of it's our ERAF, you know, we've got some stuff done this year. And I feel like I can still move forward with this budget and at the end of the year, be happy with my progress that we've gotten projects done in Bethel. And I do feel that there's more efficiencies that I can find and that we need to fine tune a couple spots. But as Chris always likes to tell me, you can't write the ship in one year. So, but, you know, I'm trying and I do know there's more efficiencies that we can take advantage of and maybe get further ahead. That's certainly one of my goals, fiscal goals. And I think the idea, you know, if COVID didn't hit, you know, the idea would be to be presenting the taxpayers a, you know, a 3% increase, you know, which is close to 3 cents tax rate increase and put, you know, another 1% worth of money into our future funds, our capital building or road infrastructure like we've been doing. But I think we really have to, you know, like we also really have to look at the whole picture of how people are going to be affected this year, not just at the town level, but, you know, there is going to be a very large increase coming down at the education level. You know, it does affect everybody. So, at least at this point, you know, it doesn't seem like a lot, but if we save people 1 cent on ours, you know, I guess every penny counts. I was doing the math out quick, Paul, just throwing it out there like, let's say we do have 150,000 that we're going to have to come up with for the reappraisal. If you put the 20 in that we are suggesting in this budget, you know, because it's probably going to be what, realistically, two to three years, probably three before we really... I mean, if you get fully stopped up and then you go out and you do an RFP and then you look at the fids and then you've got to get, you possibly could be on somebody's waiting list. So, sure, yeah, I definitely think that's a reasonable timeframe. And with your CLA, your CLA right now, I think you're probably okay. I mean, it's certainly a good job for you. Is that going to change because of all the recent real estate activity in town that's going to change the grand list? Because if those property values, those prices, the selling prices are just through the roof. I mean, it's great for the tax base, but is that going to have a negative impact on our ratio with the state that's going to push us into a reappraisal sooner? Well, I think what you're going to see is your common level of appraisal, I believe, and takes into account your last three years of sales. I think it's three years of sales. So, yeah, everybody's afraid, but those are going to skew it, right? People buying them sight unseen. Certainly the Listers have currently done a really good job about saying, hey, look, this is not either an arms length transaction because it was to family members or because, hey, somebody just paid through the roof for this. So when they go through the sales study, which Louise and Judy have done really well and with a fine tooth comb, they can certainly put in their arguments as to why some of these things are different. And it's going to be statewide. It's not going to be just Bethel. It's going to be everybody. And I think even like Paul, like what Teresa was saying, even if we wanted to do it, let's say now, it's probably going to be one to two years before you can line somebody up to come in to do it. But I do think that one thing we probably ought to do as a board is make a decision on when we want to do it. That way we can 100% budget for this. If that is, we want to do it in the, you know, whatever the 2023 season or something like that, so that we could start putting those pieces in motion. Why would we want to do it before our CLA gets to that point that triggers it? As long as your CLA is up there and there's no reason to have a reappraisal. Well, sometimes it's a matter of, you know, I guess that could be a matter of opinion because sometimes you have people who are unhappy with evaluation of their property because, you know, maybe somebody's, people feel like they're not, they're paying too much. I think that sometimes it is, here's your level. This is going to be it. It's just a matter of shifting who's paying what, maybe evening that out. But honestly, I think that it's going to be until you get a full list or board and get the office. So probably in the fall, by the end of the summer fall, Judy, whoever else, myself and whoever's, at the time will probably sit down and talk about it. Then they'll have better numbers because everybody in the state's going to be struggling with the same issue. But planning for it's not a bad idea because it gives you, you can also put out your RFP. And by the time you even, you know, still could be drafting an RFP and getting it out there, getting people back, looking at the candidates, all that, still could put you out three years. So, and by then Dave, who knows what your, you know, CLA would do. Yeah. But isn't that what grievance is for if you feel that you're being unfairly taxed? Sure. But I mean, you can see it now. When people call me with appraisals, I often ask them to leave a copy with a lister so that they can look through it to make sure the square footage matches and some things like that. But really, I think what a reappraisal does sometimes, it isn't going to drop your tax. Because mine kind of evens out the tax base so that when you see, you know, some properties that are selling for maybe a lot more or less than the town of Bethel has them, has them valued at. So, but yes, you're right. It's grievances like that, Dave, but it, you know, but for you to townwide, the great thing about a townwide is if they haven't been in your house in 10 years and you've read down your kitchen and two bathrooms, we're going to find it. There's some good things about it. But I think it'll be a while anyways, Dave, and probably by then the CLA may have tripped it anyways. But it's just a planning process and who knows, we just have to make sure by fall that, yeah, we have a staff in there with Judy and, you know, other things, but as long as Judy's part of that decision to figure out how we're going to move forward, it may be an appraiser and it may, you know, I don't know. But setting aside money doesn't hurt. So what is, what does the board think about the current proposed budget or the revised one that we have currently? I don't have a problem with it. I think overall, Teresa did a great job of just, especially with the increases of, of certain areas like putting in the town garage loan and things like that. It's really nice to see how well balanced it is. I was actually sort of pleasantly surprised when I looked through this one, that it was knowing what major increases were going to be added to it. I was ready for it to be a lot higher than it ended up being. So I'm, I'm really happy with it. Yeah. I think it's great. We've gotten money in there for some other projects like the repeater up on the North road and, and some work on the wall. And there's still, you know, some things there that aren't necessarily just your routine increases in insurances and things. We're still able to do some of those other little projects. Yeah. I'm a favorite. Certainly trying to pull a rabbit out of my hat to get two buildings at once, which I thought I had a good job pitching two weeks ago, but not so much. So, but I feel good about this budget and that we can get some things done. I think that's the key. And, and so I, you know, I feel good about it. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, kind of what Linley said, you know, I, you know, I was kind of pleasantly surprised. I mean, that, you know, we are continuing to be forward thinking and some of these projects that maybe a couple of years ago, we were thinking, oh boy, this is going to be expensive. And, you know, now we're starting to either pay for them or budget to pay for them in this new budget. And, you know, to see the, you know, modest increase seems, you know, you know, I guess as if I wasn't on the board as a taxpayer, I'd be thinking that I'm, I'm getting my money's worth. You know, it's one thing to pay, pay tax and not get your money's worth, you know, and it's another to feel like you're getting something out of it. And I really think that we got a lot of forward thinking. We're moving forward on infrastructure that was well overdue. And, you know, there's been a lot of efficiencies. I think that also, you know, people can be confident in our town that not just the budgets that are, have been put in place over the last couple of years, but they're, you know, that, you know, when they're audited that those budgets, you know, are real, you know, they're not, we're not going to find out, you know, two years, three years down the road that we've been carrying money and like we have in the past. So that actually reminds me. I can't, I did get the draft audit. I can't remember if I sent that. Did I send that? I can't remember if I sent that to you guys or not. I know, okay. Well, I got it. And actually it was great. So, yes, I'm very excited. Pat me on the back. It was the last audits were tough. The first two here were horrid. But this one was like a okay. I was really excited. They didn't stay as long. So that was always good. I love to see him come, but love to see him go. So that actually came out really well. I'm waiting on the transfer station budget. I don't know what's taken Rick so long. I'll have to reach out to him again. But I'm sorry about that. I forgot. I do have the draft audit. I approved it. And so they should be coming out in hard copy anyways. But it was good. It was good. I was happy. But I made a note. So I'll make sure I get you guys that. Do we have a motion to approve the general fund budget? As amended currently. So moved. Second. Hey, all in favor? All right. Hi. Hi. Got Moe's thumbs up. That's like the seal of approval from Moe. You got a couple chats. Yeah, I saw that. It's just, it's from Owen. He just said he was having internet issues. Thank you all for your service. I think it's just, I mean, all I, you know, done a lot of hard work as well as the board members on, you know, really finding some of these efficiencies, right? I mean, there's, you know, I just go through these things of where we were a couple of years ago with, let's say, just materials. I mean, we were spending all kinds of money on materials or, you know, being more efficient in the office or at the public works, because public works makes up a very large portion of the budget. You know, it just seems like we got a lot of efficiencies there that, and like, you know, three said, we are doing forward thinking projects and the taxpayers aren't necessarily having to fork over more money for those projects, you know. We're paying for more of the efficiencies, so that's good. I still think there's some more out there, and I know kind of focus on that a little bit this time and this budget is, and some changes, you know, about, I just think there's some more efficiencies that can be done. I think there's some things that we're doing now that we could do better. And so that's my focus. So next is to do that. Perfect. All right. And then next we had, I guess we, you know, probably might just be a discussion to blend the two together, but we have the two parcels that we were kind of looking at that are available to us, eventually. So that's 69 Church Street we talked about last time, which is the Placies, and I did do what you asked, and I spoke with their nephew, or the Mrs. Placies nephew, and he basically said we could make an offer with us, evicting the current tenant and cleaning up the property, removing the trailer, and demolishing the outbuildings, or we could make them an offer with them evicting the tenant and us still cleaning it up. And so let's just be realistic. We all know when we say we evict the tenant, it means the police and the lawyer are going to evict the tenant. I feel like this is their mess and they should clean it up, frankly. So I think that if, you know, taking over that project or that property is going to be a lot because we're going to have to clean it up and it's a garbage, it's cleaning it, and then it's getting rid of the trailer. And maybe there's some scrap metal money and moving the trailer. I don't really know what the market is for that right now. But I did give you a property, itemized property cost of the building. I'd gone over it with Louise had handed it to me. So, so there's that. I also did, you know, people, someone came in and made a donation on, on for $5,000 if you would buy, if you bought Placies and then agreed to make it the next town office. I gave them the check back and said, hang on to your money. We'll make it, you know, it's like we're needs to make a decision. You know, I'm not sure what your plan is going to be there, but to tie them together is, is right. The other one is 97 lower church street, which is the point three, four acres. And that's just basically a shell at this point. I spoke to Dylan and they'd taken the windows out. They cleaned it all up, you know, the needles, the drug needles. And I guess it was pretty bad down there. And so I spoke to Tim about it and we have a bunch of water sewer infrastructure down there, generator, two, six inch river siphons that run the entire length of the property, a flushing station in the middle of the yard that's, you know, buried another underground structure that allows for the maintenance of the siphons and water lines. And so it's also an opportunity there too. They just happened to come up at the same time. I called Dylan back and said, look, you know, come up with a price that you're looking for and then give me a separate price for how much it would cost for you to remove the remaining structure of, of John Henry's house so that that was just land. So I don't know what to tell you. I mean, they're both opportunities that came up at the, just happened to come up at the same time. Well, I think, you know, both, I mean, it's always good for us to explore all of our options, right? You know, I think both properties, you know, definitely have benefits to the town in one way or another. If it's not either collecting tax revenue, it is, you know, like, I know we've talked about the, the church street place. Well, at least since Mo and I've been on the board, that's one that has been talked about, you know, as probably the only other viable potential to call village lot left that has some sort of closer proximity to the downtown. If that's either like a overflow parking or experimenting to, you know, do something there with a future town building or something like that. I mean, as we know, there's, there's really no open footprint in the downtown to put anything. So I know that has come up a few times, correct me if I'm wrong, Mo, that if, you know, if it arose and we could get a good deal on it, that we would jump for it. I think, you know, just speaking for myself anyways, I don't know if I'd, I or the town would want to get involved in, you know, with, you know, squatters, we've been down that road before, you know, thinking how long it took us for the sugar house road piece you know, I think it would have to be, you know, there wouldn't have to, you know, there wouldn't be anybody living there, you know, maybe even the owner clean up the property before we bought a type deal. I think it's just a very large undertaking for the town to have to do all that regardless of what kind of deal we get about. And then, you know, and then, you know, the piece down, you know, Henry's old place, there, I mean, if you really look at that piece right now, there isn't really a large potential of growth on that property from talking to people. Doesn't sound like if, you know, if something does get built, it's going to be something very small in nature that isn't going to have a great impact on a revenue stream for taxes. It's a parcel that's probably more beneficial to the town on because it's infrastructure where it's located. You know, I don't think that the town's in a position to buy two pieces of property in the next year, but you know, it's kind of nice to just kind of look at it and, you know, kick it around and see if something works. I mean, I certainly think that I could start, I mean, I will look for money to, you know, obviously for grants. I don't know what's out there available. You know, one of the things that Chris had suggested was Park and Ride. The person who had given me, you know, approached me with a $5,000 donation felt that there was more money out there that could be raised to buy places. And maybe that's maybe, you know, you buy places or you, you know, wait and get them clean it up and then try to buy it or at least get them to a big tenant and clean the garbage up. And then you purchase it and maybe there is money out there for that that people, you know, a grassroots movement would use to at least turn into parking for now and then maybe 10, 15, 20, whatever years down the road and we build a town office up there. But right now that's certainly not in the cards for us. As far as Lower Church Street, I would, you know, I will look for money, maybe do Water Sewer to see if that's another, because maybe the Water Sewer Department buys it. So maybe there's a different pot of money. I'm not really sure. I'll have to take a look. It just was an opportunity that came up. And I mean, let's say if the town did have the money to buy both parcels. I mean, potential tax revenue of the way, well, tax revenue of the way it stands, those properties stand right now. I mean, we're not generating, you know, more than $1,000 a year in revenue between the two. You know, and I don't know if there's ever going to be, at least not the, you know, Henry's old place. I just don't see anybody really building anything of any value there to get revenue out of that. Maybe place his place if somebody came in and, you know, clean that all up and built themselves a nice little house that, you know, you could generate more tax revenue there. But I think it's probably pretty unlikely. I'm happy to go back to the nephew and tell him that the select board is, you know, may be interested, but they need to evict the tenant and clean up all the garbage first. Then we can, then we'd get a chance to get a better look at the property and go from there. But right now it's, I drove by the other day and was like, oh, so. The piece Henry's old place we were talking about, if, you know, if we, you know, struck a reasonable deal down there, that that would probably go through the water, sewer department. Is that correct, Teresa? Yeah, that's what we were thinking. I was just wondering if maybe I could find, you know, money that way. Plus they're the ones, the water sewer department has all the infrastructure down there. I don't know, you know, I'm like, right now, obviously Dylan is, I called him and just said, look, you need to get me a couple of numbers together. And it's going to take a little bit of time to get back to me. I told him it wasn't anything that we had money burn a hole in our pocket. And I wasn't really sure what we could do. So he's going to get back to me. And in the meantime, I can, you know, we, well, after the holidays here, I'll start looking for, see what's out there for grant money, kind of ask around and see what's out there. I mean, I get, you know, we do have an easement there at John Henry's certainly, but it's got really bad water pressure. The water used to freeze there a lot. I think that's pretty common knowledge. And it would be just nice. The neighbor was just begging us to buy it and make it into a park. And he promised he would mow it for us. He's like, I'll mow it if you just buy it and get that place cleaned up. So Dylan and his family obviously have cleaned it up. So, which is nice. But I guess I would say Dylan's, we probably, you know, I would say that the structure would have to be taken down for us to, you know, want to have interest in purchasing that. Yeah, I did. That's why I asked him, I said, give me a price on the land on that property and give me a second price for you taking it down and getting rid of it and making it, you know, smooth and grassy. And just like, so it's a park. So I guess it's just a waiting game. If you're comfortable, if there's a consensus that you want the places to evict their own tenant and clean up their garbage, then I'm happy to get ahold of the nephew tomorrow and tell him to check back with us once he's evicted somebody, which will be hard during the COVID rules and gets the trash cleaned up and then he could reach back out to me if that's the consensus of the board. Now, how does it work with, I know with the, you know, like Henry's property, we would go, you know, that would go through the water and sewer, which would be different. I mean, on place to place, would we have to go through any different formal process being that that would be... No, I believe it or not. I mean, it's, there's hoops of fire for you to sell land, but you can buy land very easily and you do not need the voters to approve you buying land. Obviously, unless you were going to get a loan for it, then that's worse, the different kettle of fish. But I think right now, both of them are going to take a little bit of time. I mean, I've already told them before and if your consensus is that with the place, then I'll call the nephew tomorrow, tell him, call me when you get the tenant out and the garbage cleaned up and then we'll talk about it. That buys you some time and gives me some time to look for some money. And there may be a grassroots movement out there to buy the, buy it then. So we'll see. Does the board members have any issue with Therese continue to work on both or either one of those parcels and... I think the Henry property is, you taught what everybody's saying I agree with the Church Street property after looking at the numbers that you gave us and knowing what it... Talking to people who've demoed and removed trailers and buildings and whatnot. That property right as it sits has a $0 value, zero. By the time you pay to clean that place up, you will have 50 grand in it. That's what I'm afraid of, Dave, because I've never pulled a trailer off from a piece of land, but trying to evict someone, the legal bills are going to be tough and there's obviously new rules because of COVID. And we all know how much fun it is to clean up trash, but that does, I think that makes sense, Dave, what you're saying. You don't pull that trailer out. That'll come out with an excavator and a dump truck. I'm serious. I'm sure. Do you think there's any scrap value? Like it used to be people bought old trailers, but probably not anymore. Have you seen our waste stream? We're paying to get rid of good recycling. We're not going to pay for the trash. Yeah, I wasn't sure about that anymore, how that worked. But yeah, I think that they let it, frankly, it's their mess, let them clean it up and we can go from there. Once they get the garbage and it cleaned up in the tenant out, then maybe then we can reevaluate where we stand. Yeah, okay, I agree. Maybe. I know, and that's a big maybe for me, but even if they just get it cleaned up, it's a bonus for the entire town. They're going to want to go through that whole process without us having enough of an interest for them to spend that money. I don't know. I mean, I told him, he said, yeah, he said make an offer based on us doing it or make an offer based on you doing it. And it's just such a big what if. I mean, I can have another conversation with him about it to tell him that we're kind of scared to touch it. We'd like to see him clean it up first, get rid of the trash, and then evict the tenant, and then maybe we'd be interested and. Yeah, I think that I think the thing with the place these places, it's kind of like a high risk, high reward type situation. You know, it, you know, there is that there's quite a bit of liability that could fall in the shoulders of the town with either cleaning it up or, you know, like Dave was saying, but I think that property probably has the greatest upside to the town. You know, if we were able to work it out well, where Henry's is probably lower risk, but lower reward, right? I mean, we probably just get it just for infrastructure reasons and be able to control that. I mean, he did say that when I spoke to the nephew that, I mean, he realized that the trailer wasn't worth anything. And I think he was kind of just looking at the land value itself, which, you know, the land value here is, you know, just looking at the land price on that is 25 too. And that doesn't include the water sewer allowance that the, you know, but it's tough. I mean, I don't know. I mean, yeah. Okay. That land will be worth more after the trailer's gone. You know, if the place is cleaned up, that that one water is going to be worth more than $25,000 in downtown Bethel. True. My opinion. We should buy it now, Mo, and clean it up ourselves. No, no, no, no. I don't want to get involved in the cleanup of it, but I'm just saying that if it would be best to them to clean it up and to sell the property outright, because it's going to be worth more than it's listed for. Yeah. I think the tough thing is, what is it? It's just under an acre, right? Yeah. And then it's right on the embankment there. So my guess is you, you know, your offsets have to be so far from the embankment to build. And, you know, so it shrinks your what you can do. You'd have to probably build closer to the road, would be my guess. But to us, you know, we have the abutting piece of land there with the, with the ban shell, right? So that, you know, it's clearly, you know, there's a lot more we could do with those two pieces together than somebody just buying that 910. We own a strip, we own a strip between their property line and the, in the sidewalk. There's a strip of land that fell on. Yeah. We own the front part. Yeah. Piece up there. Yeah. A funny layout. Well, I can also just get ahold of the nephew and talk to him again and just, you know, we're not, we're not ready to come out and make you an offer based on, you know, we need you to clean up the product, clean up the trash. So we can actually see what's there. I mean, because right now, until he gets rid of the garbage, we don't really know what we're dealing with for what's in the outbuildings, what's in the trailer, what's around it. I mean, it's kind of hard to tell. Yeah, I worked, I worked over there years ago and that garage that's out back was full of automotive pieces and parts and snow machines and wouldn't be surprised if you find some kind of hazardous waste out there. I didn't think about, yeah. Well, I will reach out to him and tell him that, you know, once they get the garbage cleaned up and start the eviction process, that he can kind of maybe reach back out to us, but that until the garbage is cleaned up and we can actually either walk the property or, you know, get in there and actually look at it, we can't really see it for what it is until it's cleaned up. And then, you know, a couple of us could get together and walk it once they get it cleaned up. Yeah, well, sounds good. And we'll wait on Dylan. I told him, you know, like I said, we didn't have, you know, cash in hand, so he would just get us a price and, you know, let me know and we'd mull it over from there. I just told him I would take it to you and let you know and it was an opportunity available. So, yeah. Well, I mean, again, you know, we should always weigh all of our options and if they go anywhere or not. Exactly. We don't want to get into the eviction business again. Again, no, we're all, we don't have, we don't currently have a property that we have a squatter on. So, we'll do this a couple of years. So, all righty. Anything further on those two pieces or, you know, we'll just have Theresa update us as she gets more information. It's probably going to be something, it's going to be ongoing for months or years, but we'll... Yeah, it could be. All right. And then we had the items that we added there in regards to motions for the... Bill ado. Bill ado property. So, why don't you, does anybody have it? I mean, why don't you, Theresa, just read off the motions and we'll... So, I can tell you a little bit, I'll just give you the attorney. He just said that basically what he's looking, what we're looking for now is that the... We're finally just, we're getting to the final end of this whole, you know, Bill ado the town and then Vermont River Conservancy. So, what he said to me was to be sure there are no issues with the town's acceptance of this conveyance. We propose that the select board amend its agenda tonight to add an item about bill ado property. And then so consider this motion is what he's saying. Motion to approve the town's acceptance of the conveyance of the 8.5 acre plus or minus bill ado property at 428 Pleasant Street by warranty deed from the Vermont River Conservancy Inc. subject to a conservation easement in favor of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and the Vermont River Conservancy and to authorize the town manager to execute any closing documents related to the transaction. So, we just need to so moved. Oh, moved. Thanks, Moe. Okay, Lindley and Moe. You didn't want to repeat that? I know. That's why I emailed it to Lisa today because I was like, she's going to be like, no. All in favor of that. Why? Then the other motion is to waive the recording fees. Yeah, one other item related to this is whether the town is willing to waive the recording fees related to the recording of the conservation easement and the warranty deed from Vermont River Conservancy. He's just saying if the select board is willing to pass a motion along these lines this evening and make closing go a little smoother. So, they've raised a lot of money to buy this property. So, moved to waive the fees. Thank you. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. I know they've done a lot of good work there and it's all in the town's benefit here in the long run. So, did they happen to say what the timeline for the town getting the piece of property back, Therese? I think it's going to be shortly. I think that was part of the whole, the closing here I think is going to happen in the next you know, a couple of weeks. I think it's going to happen before the end of the year. Town managers reports or anything that we haven't gone over Therese that Just just three just a couple quick things is one is whoop whoop we sold the Ventrax $14,250. So, I was able to take that portion out of the budget of buying the mower. So, that was good news. That made me happy when we sold it to somebody. I think he's out of Pittsburgh in that area. Also, we've had several residents take advantage of the Vermont Arirage Assistance Program for utilities. We put that in the water bills and I talked to you about it. I got three more today, four more today. The first one I processed this morning. Three more this afternoon and then this light, this message came up and I guess they've run out of money. So, they have some things that are pending. So, I have three for sitting in my queue right now that I cannot approve or to send on for them to verify. So, what they said was they were going to leave them in the queues and hope maybe there'll be more money coming down the pike. But at least we got, I think I had at least six take advantage of that. So, that's good for us. It's people that were more than 60 days old. So, it helps them and helps us. And the money comes directly to us, which is nice. The other thing, as I said earlier, was we received $3,867.96 in reimbursement for the town office. Some of that went to the transfer station, some of the fire department and highway department, which paid for all of our COVID cleaning supplies. I actually bought a new laptop for the town office for people that case working remotely, paid for our Zoom for several months of our Zoom bill. And so, it actually was good. And so, I think a few hundred, I want to say 400, maybe five went to the transfer station, four to the fire department. And so, better than a sharp stick in the eye. And we got, so at least we got some of our money back. The other thing is just a reminder that you guys have your, I put in your packets, W4s, for your withholding and for the Ramon's withholding and your proof of health insurance, all that. You just need to get those back, completed, and submit it to DT by December 17th. So, because she will, and then we will pay, you'll get paid in the final payroll of this year, this month. So, she just needs them by the 17th. Okay. And that's it. Am I able to print them out of this report? I think so. I think you can just print the certain pages that you want. Okay. If not, just reach out to Kelly Detry or myself, and we can scan you a separate set or... You should be able to just Google it. All of those forms are pre-online, just downloadable PDFs. So, you should just Google W4 and have a printable version right there. That's a good point. Yeah. And then we can pay you your hundreds of thousands of dollars. You're all donating his back this year. That's right. I, you know, hopefully it doesn't come back. Well, all of us donate, and all of our still wouldn't pay for the election. We might be able to buy the placey place. Right. There you go. We had the select board meeting minutes for the 23rd of November. So, I would entertain a motion to approve those. Hey, all in favor? Aye. Aye. And then also in our packet sale we had, it was some meeting minutes from the DRB, the REC committee, the Bethel Energy Committee. I also wanted to just, I know we talked about it briefly at the last meeting. I checked out the parking ride down at the interstate. They do have level one charging stations there. Where are they? They're right on the light pole. Yeah. But they're charging, they're level one, which if I remember right, by the information that the energy committee had passed out, you know, level one is like a, you know, a full charge is like eight to 10 hours or something. So, yeah. So it's, I guess it's going to be more like, you know, people that are parking ride and are plugging their vehicle in for the day, not like you're driving up from Massachusetts and you're stopping to get a charge, which I guess I had thought it was going to be more of a, you know, people traveling, you know, to and from that they'd be able to, you know, do one of those whatever hour or two hour quick charges. But that's about, are they charging people for it? No. It doesn't look like any of them have been used. Wow. What is the problem? Yeah. Well, I think it's going to be, it's level one. I mean, you're out at the interstate. So, you know, I don't, I don't know. I mean, you would think if you had an electric vehicle that you would be the one that would probably drive to work and everybody would carpool with you, right? But so, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of odd, but I, I know we were talking about last time, I said, I don't see anything out there. And then I drove in the, yeah, they're all in there. So, I think it's ridiculous. If they're going to plug it in and park all day in charge, they should have to pay for it. I mean, yeah, there's, there's, yeah, again, I remember the energy committee telling us that it was like eight to 10 hours for a full charge. So, it's a long time to be straight into the park a lot. So, we can pay for an electric range. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, I just wanted to let everybody know that Paul's there had their meeting minutes in there as well. Would you look like Paul, you had, you had one, the art bus back this year and then increased visiting nurses, is that if I read it right? Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much all we did. We opted to level fund the other ones. The art bus had been off of the list since 2014. But they came back on and wanted quite a bit more. So, we felt that we wanted to put the extra money toward the visiting nurse, obviously, they're stretched thin with the COVID situation. So, those were the only two that we added on. Everybody else requested it and was granted level funding pretty much. Red Cross wanted a little more this year, but we opted to level fund them also. I thought giving it to the visiting nurse was a great, it was a great idea. Yep. And we also, you know, the, the senior centers, Quintown and Royalt Senior Center, Carol Ketchum mentioned that they have both seen a tremendous increase in their usage for senior lunches and senior activities. So, we, you know, we opted to keep them that they requested them out. How did Project Happy Holidays go, Paul? Did you get all of your 50 plus families to come and pick up their stuff? Well, we ended up with a total of 62 requests. Wow. 60 different families. We had only planned originally it started at 54 but it kind of grew in the last week or so. We had to figure out a way to move that number of people through the building safely was the big challenge and we figured out a way to do it. We had folks coming in at certain times. We only allowed one or two members in the building at a time to pick up all of their pre-arranged, pre-packaged toys, clothing, food box, turkey out the front door. It worked out very well. We still have Thursday night, we're going to have more folks coming in. We have 14 left to deal with but everybody else moved through in a very safe fashion and I think we'll be maintaining a lot of the practices that we learned. So, you ended up being able to serve all 62? Yeah, hopefully. There are usually some that don't show up. They fell out on application, they just don't show up. So, we usually have some extra boxes and we can also build some boxes of food from the food shelf stocks. So, yeah, it will end up being 62 seniors and families and yeah. That's amazing. That's wonderful. I wondered, I knew you guys had a plan for the layout and you said you got some extras so that's great. Yeah, I know the girls and I, we donated our, we had 12 boxes, 12 family meals that we donated to the school this year. They had, it's like our 13th or 14th year of donating. So, do you donate to the school? Did you say, Chris? Yeah, to the elementary school. Usually, we do 10 meals at 10 meals a year. So, it's like everybody gets a ham and then there's a bag with food in it. It's usually about $45 a meal when you put them all together. But I was told by the school that there's another identity that over in Woodstock and I can't remember the name, but that usually donates as well and I guess they weren't getting any donations from that identity this year, which was too bad. So, the school does an outreach as well as happy holidays. So, that's nice. Yeah, usually we kind of target, I usually let them know how many I'm going to donate and they usually find the families to need type deal. But it didn't sound like that as many donations were coming in as usual. That's too bad. Yeah, but that's nice though. That's good. We had a real issue trying to find turkeys. Turkey donations were a way to let down less than half of what we normally would see coming in. So, I had to do some hustling to find them. And unfortunately, the Central Vermont Hospital returned some to one of the food service places and we were able to grab those as a donation from them to fill the order that we needed. The other folks that really kicked in, Brad and Katie at Central Market donated $50 gift cards from Central Market to put in, I think they did $24, $50 gift cards. That'll be riveted out too between the two stores. So, it was good local support. That's great. It's good to hear. Is everybody going to be here for the 28th meeting? Just making sure. I hope so. Oh, unfortunately, all my plans have been canceled. So... Dave says he hopes so. These are my plans now, you know. Yeah, exactly. Amen. This is my one activity. You're one social. You have no excuse. Yeah, I get to see people and talk to them. Yeah, what did you say, Mal? Our social gathering. That's right. Yeah. So, we also have this dedication page. Yeah. So, I had Kelly send it under separate cover. So, once we get closer to the town report, but she... We had it a couple, I don't know, I came in, I think last week, last slacker meeting, I didn't do anything with it. I had forgotten that it was there. And so, I just had her send it to you under separate cover. And we'll just make an executive session time when we get closer to the time to dedicate. But somebody had dropped it off, so we wanted to get it to you. To mull it over. And I'll start working on the select board review. If anybody, you know, wants to send me, hey, don't forget to put this on that type deal. Feel free to send me an email. If not, I'll just do like normal. I'll get it out at the next meeting. And then, or before the next meeting, and then you all can, you know, give me some feedback on anything I may have messed or any, uh, grammical errors that may be in there. So, that's all I have. All right. So, don't forget to come by and sign. I'll put that on the clipboard tomorrow so everybody can swing by and get the loan papers out so I can get them back to the state. Okay, sounds good. Move the adjourn. Hey, all in favor? All right. All right. So, have a good evening, everybody. All right. Thanks, you too. Holidays. You too. Yes, right. Happy holidays. I'll see you though. You're going to come in. Christmas. Oh, yeah. We just need some snow now. That's right. Oh, we'll see. You can go somewhere where there is some. It doesn't look like I was checking the forecast. It doesn't look like we're getting any before then, which is unfortunate, but. Yeah. If we could just get it for Christmas and then it would go away, I'd be happy. Just enough to be pretty. And then it would be pretty for Christmas and not enough for three steps to pay out over time. That's all. All right. I just soon know. I just soon know the line on Christmas Day. Me too. Me too. I'm with you.